It's in His Kiss (Bridgertons 7)

“Do offer them my regards,” Lord St. Clair said, executing a smart little bow. “They are good ton, your family. I’m certain they want what’s best for you.”

Hyacinth just stared at him. She had no idea what the subtext was in this conversation, but clearly she did not have all the facts. And she hated being left in the dark.

Gareth yanked on her arm, hard, and she realized that he’d already started walking away. Hyacinth tripped over a bump in the path as she fell into place at his side. “What was that all about?” she asked, breathless from trying to keep up with him. He was striding through the park with a speed her shorter legs simply could not match.

“Nothing,” he bit off.

“It wasn’t nothing.” She glanced over her shoulder to see if Lord St. Clair was still behind them. He wasn’t, and the motion set her off-balance, in any case. She stumbled, falling against Gareth, who didn’t seem inclined to treat her with any exceptional tenderness and solicitude. He did stop, though, just long enough for her to regain her footing.

“It was nothing,” he said, and his voice was sharp and curt and a hundred other things she’d never thought it could be.

She shouldn’t have said anything else. She knew she shouldn’t have said anything else, but she wasn’t always cautious enough to heed her own warnings, and as he pulled her along beside him, practically dragging her east toward Mayfair, she asked, “What are we going to do?”

He stopped, so suddenly that she nearly crashed into him. “Do?” he echoed. “We?”

“We,” she confirmed, although her voice didn’t come out quite as firmly as she’d intended.

“We are not going to do anything,” he said, his voice sharpening as he spoke. “We are going to walk back to your house, where we are going to deposit you on your doorstep, and then we are going to return to my small, cramped apartments and have a drink.”

“Why do you hate him so much?” Hyacinth asked. Her voice was soft, but it was direct.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t answer, and then it became clear that he wasn’t going to answer. It wasn’t her business, but oh, how she wished it were.

“Shall I return you, or do you wish to walk with your maid?” he finally asked.

Hyacinth looked over her shoulder. Frances was still behind her, standing near a large elm tree. She didn’t look the least bit bored.

Hyacinth sighed. She was going to need a lot of peppermints this time.

Chapter 12

Twenty minutes later, after a long and silent walk.

It was remarkable, Gareth thought with more than a little self-loathing, how one encounter with the baron could ruin a perfectly good day.

And it wasn’t even so much the baron. He couldn’t stand the man, that was true, but that wasn’t what bothered him, what kept him up at night, mentally smacking himself for his stupidity.

He hated what his father did to him, how one conversation could turn him into a stranger. Or if not a stranger, then an astonishingly good facsimile of Gareth William St. Clair…at the age of fifteen. For the love of God, he was an adult now, a man of twenty-eight. He’d left home and, one hoped, grown up. He should be able to behave like an adult when in an interview with the baron. He shouldn’t feel this way.

He should feel nothing. Nothing.

But it happened every time. He got angry. And snappish. And he said things just for the sake of being provoking. It was rude, and it was immature, and he didn’t know how to stop it.

And this time, it had happened in front of Hyacinth.

He had walked her home in silence. He could tell she wanted to speak. Hell, even if he hadn’t seen it on her face, he would have known she wanted to speak. Hyacinth always wanted to speak. But apparently she did occasionally know when to leave well enough alone, because she’d held silent throughout the long walk through Hyde Park and Mayfair. And now here they were, in front of her house, Frances the maid still trailing them by twenty feet.

“I am sorry for the scene in the park,” he said swiftly, since some kind of apology was in order.

“I don’t think anyone saw,” she replied. “Or at the very least, I don’t think anyone heard. And it wasn’t your fault.”

He felt himself smile. Wryly, since that was the only sort he could manage. It was his fault. Maybe his father had provoked him, but it was long past time that Gareth learned

to ignore it.

“Will you come in?” Hyacinth asked.

He shook his head. “I’d best not.”